While the punter is typically an afterthought on any football team, Kirby Van Der Kamp is different.

Van Der Kamp’s punts have impacted the defense’s success substantially this season, with 21 of 49 landing inside the opponents’ 20-yard line and only three of those 21 resulting in scores (one touchdown, two field goals).

“It’s what us coaches call hidden yardage,” said defensive coordinator Wally Burnham. “If they’ve got to drive 80 [yards], we’ve got a good shot at stopping them before they get there, hopefully.

“If you don’t have that punter, it makes it tougher; it makes it tougher to get that field position.”

Even though Van Der Kamp isn’t bench-pressing as much as his teammates, his role on the team has been crystalized from the precision of his punts and his approach to improving his precision.

“He’s cerebral about the game,” said ISU coach Paul Rhoads of Van Der Kamp in September. “He analyzes it, he looks at it, then he goes out and executes.”

Van Der Kamp has honed his punting technique in his two-plus years at Iowa State, marking his name in the school record books as the current leader in career punting average at 43.5 yards per punt.

“It’s just muscle memory; your body knows,” Van Der Kamp said. “You kind of tell yourself how hard you’re going to kick it, but ultimately your body is going to take over. I’ve done it so many times that it knows that I’m this far away, it’s these wind conditions and this is how hard I’m going to hit it. It’s just about repetition and muscle memory.”

Hailing from West Des Moines, Van Der Kamp was a two-year letterwinner as a punter and wide receiver for perennial football powerhouse Valley High School, where he also lettered as an all-conference goalkeeper in soccer.

Van Der Kamp said his only offer to play college football came from Iowa State, but he originally wanted to play collegiate soccer at a lower-level college somewhere within the state.

However, Van Der Kamp had never punted in a varsity game when he was offered a scholarship to be a punter by Rhoads at an ISU special teams camp the summer before his senior year.

“I had some nice hits, and [Rhoads] was trying to see who was more composed out of some of us, and he’d, like, throw his hat and mess around with us while we were punting,” Van Der Kamp said. “He just wanted to see who could handle the pressure and who stayed composed through the good and the bad stuff.”

Van Der Kamp said Rhoads got a lot of criticism for offering to let him be a punter despite having never actually punted in a varsity game. Nonetheless, Van Der Kamp booted 27 punts for an average of 40.5 in his senior year at Valley to prepare him for college ball.

One year later as a true freshman at Iowa State, Van Der Kamp got an unexpected wake-up call in the second game of the season — a road game at the raucous Kinnick Stadium against Iowa.

“As we were getting on the bus to go to the game, I was told I was starting, so that was the first time I knew,” Van Der Kamp said. “I was nervous — I had a lot of mixed emotions — but it was good to get one under my belt.”

In that game — a 35-7 loss to Iowa — Van Der Kamp drilled two of his seven punts inside the 20-yard line.

Since then, Van Der Kamp has gotten more under his belt. His true freshman season saw 22 of his 60 punts downed inside the 20-yard line and a punting average of 45.2 yards per punt — earning him second-team All-Big 12 honors.

That average also ranked ninth in the country among FBS punters during the 2010 season.

So far this season, Van Der Kamp is averaging 42.9 yards per punt — which ranks 22nd nationally among FBS punters — with 10 sailing more than 50 yards.

“The guys see Kirby as not just a punter, but they see him as a guy who works throughout practice, that works on his conditioning, works on his core, works on his strength,” Rhoads said.

“He’s a backup holder, so he’s not afraid to be engaged; he works with the DBs during individual drills, which I feel is important for those guys to do to be a part of the team and not be segregated.”

As for his upper-body strength, Van Der Kamp said working on building it does serve a purpose for him.

“It’s not much functional, but I like to run out there and not look like your average punter,” Van Der Kamp said with a smile. “But that’s something that always needs improvement.”